The Ebay Partner Network Affiliate Dump Fiasco

I didn’t think there were actually THAT many affiliates smart enough to keep their mouths shut about how fucking fantastic the ebay Partner Network was (revenue wise). I’m really impressed. Now, they are ALL coming out of the woodwork. I wont go into what happened in detail, if you’re reading this post you know already that the ebay partner network dumped literally thousands (a subset?) of affiliates for sending “non engaging traffic” to ebay.

Now normally, In situations like this I would laugh at all the idiots who thought they could make a quick buck and be glad of flush out of shit affiliates clogging up the support lines. However, in this case, I’d like to comment on how ebay are actually handling it as apposed to bitching about loss of livelihood.

First of all, I would like to state that our account(s) have not been dumped and I know exactly why. Not because we have am EPC that ebay doesn’t deem quality, not because we don’t use software like “BANS” or “PHPbay” and not because we don’t send masses of ACRUS. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. It’s just common sense.

Let’s look at it from ebay’s point of view. If you were a company with an affiliate program, what sort of traffic would YOU WANT? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that ebay wants NEW users. Sending existing users to ebay is all well and good, but really, aren’t they ebay’s customers anyway? You just pointed them in the right direction. While you should get paid for that, there is probably a lot less value to ebay in those users. Our account(s) were not dumped because we send a LOT of new sign ups to ebay. We push a LOT of volume and our revenue split is ~50/50 ACRU/Winning bid Revenue.

I have absolutely NO idea why people are suggesting that people with large ACRU numbers are the bad guys. People on the EPN forum are suggesting this and others are lapping it up. Are they retarded? EBAY actually WANT a high volume of new ACTIVE users. Why else would they offer such a high bounty for them? I have not seen or heard of ONE affiliate being dumped because of high (valid) ACRUS. Think about that.

Moving on, while I’m really glad to see a lot less competition out there now, I really think that ebay are shooting themselves in the foot with on this one. The ebay affiliate manager has been called a commie, a Nazi and is even receiving threats on the post he made, and rightly so (Read the whole thread, I almost feel sorry for the EPN manager). There’s terms and conditions, contracts, codes of conduct etc. and then there’s basic human decency. If the heads upstairs knew just how poorly “Steve” over on the EPN forum is handling this, I don’t think they would be happy. We ALL understand that there are quality standards to adhere too, but what’s happening is a virtual slap in the face to affiliates that were in the program. Again, while I am happy to see the bottom feeders weeded out, a little common courtesy would have gone a long way. Especially to those affiliates who have sent decent traffic to ebay.

All you had to do was give clear guidelines.

Steve and the crew at EPN, we know you have a job to do and we know you have targets and goals, but seriously, you should be ashamed of yourselves for how you are treating PEOPLE. I will actually be using this example as a case study in “Worst Case Scenario Reputation Management - How to Completely Fuck Things Up” at the end of the year. And as for the management team over at EBAY… hiring people right out of college who have really no clue what they are doing, no wonder your stock is tanking.

This is 2008, people blog about shit like this.

Don’t worry, we’ll still be pushing volume to you guys over on EPN but treat us like that and you’ll be dumped too. We’ve had our backup plan tested and in place since the beginning.

*** I have a feeling there are a lot of the big names frantically making calls because ebay no longer wants “volume”. They want something most affiliates cannot give them.

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  This blog is my personal venting chamber. I'm a little pissed off sometimes. If you have a problem with that, tough. I don't sell ebooks. I don't run membership sites. I don't want your money.

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